Roots in the Brain
by OrnamentofRhyme
Summary: Gally goes after the Thomas and the remaining Gladers, but somewhere along the line his goal strays. (movie 1 canon)


_This author only sticks to movie 1 canon, and everything else is moot in my stories... except for the occasion where I kinda sorta adopt a facet of the book canon; such is the case in this fic, where Gally has a chip in his brain (as does everyone else in the Glade) that allows WICKED to mess with his head. So there's that._

* * *

Gally's own choice blew up in his face just minutes after Thomas and his group fled. There was no one left alive in the Glade but Gally after that final Griever swarm, and all he could think of was getting out—getting to the last bit of home he could hope to salvage.

In truth, the ignorant rages everyone thought they knew were less ignorant and more fear-based. He heard Thomas' explanations, he knew what Thomas did and planned to do. So he followed the same checklist.

He took an unspeakable amount of pleasure in ripping the gut from the Griever he had managed to behead. He tore the guts away from the metal cylinder and swiped at the viscera until he could see the number. 7, just as before. He then took his first ever steps into the maze.

It was easy to ignore the Sting in the beginning, what with all the adrenaline coursing through him. There was also the panicked need to find the others before he was left alone, forgotten in a maze with no one left to talk to or think about or build for or be acknowledged by. He needed to find them. So he didn't care about the hole in his back; he was too torn up about the hole in his heart his family, his friends, the Gladers had left.

But walking though the maze was a long process, and the Sting did eventually make a successful vie for his attention. He groaned in incipient agony but pressed on, his search the only thing to which he would tend.

Gally followed the clacking cylinder to a door through a hole, encountering no more Grievers along the way. Instead, his progress was impeded by the lock on the door. It asked for a series of numbers that he could not give. At first.

A moment of terror washed over him as he imagined the others already far away, and he locked in this home-cum-hell. Then something eased over him, but he couldn't seem to focus on what. He found a new thought in his head just then, one he wasn't sure belonged to him. Numbers. A code.

He pressed the glowing numbers on the door with the sequence in his head. It opened, and he stepped in. He chose to head right. He chose, right? As he walked he started to fear again that the others had chosen the other path, but before he could convince himself to turn around, he found a door. An exit, it boasted of itself. He took it.

Gaping at the wreckage that was the facility's staff, Gally saw the first body crumpled on the cold cement floor and thought sharply that it was Thomas. He neared the body, and found the dead eyes of a middle aged officer of some sort staring though his boots.

On an impulse Gally took up the handgun a foot from the officer's hand. He wrote him off as not Them. Not important. Up ahead he heard someone pipe up, and he crept toward the sound.

They stood outlined by the bright screen before them as a woman explained something Gally couldn't quite comprehend. He tried to; he stopped and closed his eyes hard. He held his trembling breath to see if it would stop drowning out the words, but he knew he could hear them. He just couldn't make them mean anything.

In that moment he wanted nothing more than to call out to them, to step into the room full of corpses and glass and his last remaining people, but he _could not._

Instead, Gally was still in the shadow of the doorway. He shook faintly.

The woman finished speaking, words still unfathomable, and the others were left floundering in the aftermath. They were about to leave him, he thought.

His feet finally worked, but they were not his to control. Gally was walked into the room, with their backs to him. They were going to leave him.

 _ **But they couldn't.**_

 _ **They would all die if they left.**_

 _ **They were all as good as dead.**_

 _ **He owed them peace.**_

"You can't go," Gally choked out. They turned to him in surprise. He leveled the gun at Thomas. This was not him. He couldn't tell them, but he hoped his eyes spoke for him.

"Gally," Thomas said. "Gally, wh-"

"Thomas," Minho cut in. "He's been Stung."

Gally felt something slither down his cheek; sweat, blood, or tears he could only guess at. For once he wished he was crying, that way they could _see._

"Oh, Gally," breathed Thomas. Louder, he said, "Gally, we can find more of the vaccine for you. Look," he gestured to the chaos around him, "We've got the whole place to ourselves now. Meticulous as these bastards were, they've gotta have more. We'll find it."

Gally wanted to agree. Of course he could not. He knew the desire rushing through him, and he knew he couldn't let it happen. Whatever they did to take control of him, it was going to be the end of him. And possibly the last of his family.

 _ **Give them peace.**_

"N-no," he hissed through his teeth. "T-T-Thomas..."

Thomas stepped forward, which Newt and Minho looked very anxious about. He held up his hands in a show of benevolence toward Gally.

"C'mon, Gal," Thomas said quietly. "You don't want this."

"Thom-" The syllables were increasingly impossible to grit out. "N-not... me..."

A fresh look of horror dawned slowly over Thomas' face, and he put his arms down, instead taking a stance more protective of their friends. He whispered something to them, and they all seemed to see what Thomas was seeing. They crept back, slow as molasses, and Gally's gun traced them the whole way. They were nearing the dark hallway branching to the left, and he wished they would just make a mad dash for it, but for all he knew, if they did he would fire. And then there was Thomas.

As they shuffled backward, Thomas padded forward, his hands open again, but lower, perhaps knowing that a show of harmlessness was futile, for Gally couldn't choose his reaction.

"No one else needs to die," Thomas said at Gally, but not to him. "Let us go. All of us. Gally included."

Gally willed himself to drop the gun, lower it, at least lift his finger off the trigger, but it only wobbled in the air with his body's manifestation of struggle.

Thomas toed closer still, feet away now, and Gally's gun remained angled at the other teens. Their chests heaved with fear. This was a weapon of trepidation that they were unfamiliar with.

And then Thomas was there, stepping in front of the gun. It pressed to his forehead.

He looked Gally in the eye and spoke. "You said this was a test. Well I passed it. You need me. So let us all go, or he will put that bullet in my skull."

The words clearly weren't for him, but Gally felt every ounce of Thomas' intense sincerity.

Gally was furious that Thomas was the harbinger of hell on their Glade, but not enough to kill him. Thomas was their leader now. And for all the controlling Gally had attempted in those last few weeks in the Glade, he didn't want to be the leader. He just wanted to do his damn part and live contently, or whatever passed for that in their shucked up lives. If Thomas wanted to play the boss, Gally would let him, as long as he wasn't a stupid slinthead about it.

Thomas' eyes never left his. They stared back at each other for a few long minutes.

Like someone had pulled a stopper, something seemed to drain out of Gally, and suddenly his exhausted arm fell to his side. The gun tumbled to the floor, and so did he soon after.

Thomas, of course, was on him first, but instead of beating the tar out of him like Gally felt he deserved, Thomas took one of his shaking hands and squeezed. "It's alright, Gal. You're alright."

"Um, except that he's Changing," Frypan pointed out.

Thomas nodded, a grim shadow passing over his face. "Look everywhere for one of those vials of blue stuff," he instructed the others. He curled over Gally to reach for the gun, and passed it on to Newt over his shoulder.

Gally was finally in agony. He gripped Thomas' hand tight and groaned as he writhed in pain.

"Hold on, we'll find it," Thomas assured. His other hand hovered over Gally for a long time until it finally settled in his hair. He ran his fingers through it over and over, trying to soothe.

Gally murmured something to Thomas just before everything went black.

When Gally awoke, there were memories in his head that hadn't existed there before. They were awful, all of them. But, he thought as he turned his head and took in his remaining family in this new location, there was still a chance to make more of them. Better ones.


End file.
